a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Bits from 10/28 and 10/29

Al Jefferson**Impact Mo Williams has had on the team: I mean, he the voice. He the guy that’s, you know, games when things get kinda too tight or at practice when you coming in feeling sore and really don’t want to get through it, he the guy that get us through it with his voice. And far as leadership on the court, he done been there. He done been to the Eastern Conference Finals, been to the Playoffs pretty much five, six years in a row.

So, you know, him and Paul [Millsap], they know what it takes to get to that level and get to the next level. You know, Paul went to the Western Conference Finals. So I think this is good to have a guy like that. The difference between him and Paul, you know, Paul more of a lead by example. He ain’t the voice here. Paul, he don’t say nothing, but he gon lead by example. Mo the voice. So it’s good to have them type of guys around.

What’s your leadership style? I kind of fit in between them both. You know, sometime lead by example, sometime state my opinion. I’m just more trying to help them young guys, young bigs especially, D-Fav [Derrick Favors] and Turkey [Enes Kanter], just try to set an example for them.

**Do you have any plans to go to Turkey? Maybe Enes can drive you around. He don’t even have driving license. Might be in America he don’t have driving license. Well anyway, he ain’t driving me around.

Mo Williams**On being a perfectionist (UDQM): I’m a perfectionist. I do it over and over again ’til I feel like it’s right. I work on it, work on it, work on it. I drill it, drill it, drill it ’til I feel like I can do it instinctively and perfect. That’s just how I am.

Tyrone Corbin**On marriage leadership: Some nights you just don’t feel like doing it. You just don’t feel like you have it, and you banged up a little bit, and to know that somebody else care about you, they understand what you feeling, what you going through, but the task at hand is still there, and it may help you fight your way through it, because they’re fighting their way through it also. Nobody’s feeling it.

**On the Jazz’s early season schedule: We got 12 of the first 18 games on the road and they’re tough opponents, but you know what, we’re going in it expecting to win games, and we work extremely hard. This team is showing we can win on the road in the exhibition season, and last year we finished up pretty good. So we have to learn lessons early, and we have to be tough and focused as a group, and understand the sense of urgency, so we gotta be ready to go.

**On Mo, Al, and Paul: I’ve talked to all three of those guys about being leaders. [What do you expect from them?] Being leaders. Being good teammates. Understanding where we are, and working together to keep us better.

** No word on whether Corbin, Craig Bolerjack, Randy Rigby, Gordie Chiesa, Earl Watson, and all the other people that keep getting Alec Burks’ name wrong ever took calculus.

Dennis Lindsey**On the Jazz’s “Don’t mess with this” list: The first thing we talked about is, I wanted everybody to give me a list of “Hey Dennis, don’t mess with this. We’re doing this well.”…There are a lot of those things, David, where I just didn’t want to come in with my own preconceived ideas about a particular practice, you know, I wanted to gain an understanding…Again, the big goal is to complement what we currently have, not change the culture. And then cultivate a couple new areas that the Miller family really believes in and wants to jump into with both feet.

David Locke: Are you comfortable sharing the things that the organization feels it does really well, that are not touchable?

Let me see. There are so many, David. There’s so many. It’s, you know, I think, you know, we do some neat things, for example, with the media.* It’s very unique that, that media, for example, gets to talk to players pre-practice. I never thought about that before, but as described to me, it made a lot of sense on why you would want to have pre-practice availability.**

* Interesting the Jazz’s media availability is the first thing that came to Lindsey’s mind when the Jazz made all assistant coaches and staff excluding Lindsey and Kevin O’Connor off-limits to the media this season, Corbin no longer making himself available to the media before games, etc.

** Rest of Lindsey’s list included some of Corbin’s warm-ups/drills, and some things the trainers and conditioning coach do.

**You’ve gotten up close and personal with Tyrone Corbin. He has a fabulous reputation around the league. What has been your impression seeing him each and every day? He’s a very poised man, and he has a real nice, quiet confidence about him, that he is a, a leadership style that NBA players will believe in and trust. He has a real nice balance of competitiveness but yet a poise, you know, that I’ve really gained to appreciate, you know, over the, you know, the last three months, and, you know, he’s someone I think we can build with and that has already proven, you know, given, you know, good talent, and time to organize the talent, he can do it.

**Is 96 minutes enough to play all four bigs? Yes. Yeah, yeah. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Between fatigue, fouls, hopefully not injuries, back-to-backs, four [games]-in-five [night]s, travel–the wear and tear on an NBA player is very significant…When the playing group, the players, are unselfish and they have team goals and the coach manages well and communicates well, there’s, there’s more than enough minutes.

**What is your message to the coaching staff on development vs. winning? To develop and win is very difficult. It is possible. I think last year was a good example, that we were a winning team in a very developmental situation. And when you can do both, you’re golden…We’re comfortable with the progress we’ve made. While we’re not satisfied, you know, we are pleased that our guys have put in the time.

** Do the Jazz have the personnel to be a top 10 defensive team right now? Right now? You know, right now, from 20 to 10 would be a big jump. Are we taking steps day-to-day to communicate, to have better body position, to rotate better, to help better, to finish off possessions with a contest without fouling and rebounding? You know, we’re, we’re taking those steps and putting in the work. Now, you know, there, there’s a lot that goes on, or goes into that production I should say.

But we are spending time, the big emphasis is to get our bigs to be more active, to be up on bodies, to communicate, so, so our perimeter players can adjust their bodies appropriately, ’cause many times, your, your big men are quarterbacking your defense from behind. And then, and then to, to rotate and help each other, you know, we, we are taking those steps.

We’re, we’re not there; I think some of that showed in the Portland game, where, where really on the road, David, all you have are your playing habits and each other. You don’t have your, your, your home court. You don’t have your, your bed the night before. You don’t have your natural rhythm. You know, you have, as you know being on the plane, you have travel issues.

So when you’re on the road, your defensive habits, your unselfishness really come to the forefront. So that will be a challenge to, to all of us, that we can rely on each other and our playing habits, as we move, move on the road, and a lot of that is the defensive component.***

*** This was a really long-winded way of saying, “No.”

By the way, scary how after just three months, Dennis Lindsey has started sounding almost exactly like Kevin O’Connor. He was dropping KOC’s patented “you know, unhhh” and “unhhh, you know” all over the place. Also that “Are we taking steps day-to-day to communicate…” bit? Classic KOC interview technique of asking a question and then answering his own question (as first discovered by Diana Allen).

The trades everyone believe teams HAVE to make are the ones that bring the least value back. With that in mind, any minimally responsible GM will only give statements that don’t indicate any possible desperation to move a certain player. I don’t think we should read anything into it.